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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108497">on the knife's edge of unwinding death</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre'>Jade_Sabre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Gen, Off-screen Character Death, One Shot, Resurrection, Resurrection Ritual, rated GA but there are a couple curse words because Beau, resurrection fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 06:34:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108497</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Sabre/pseuds/Jade_Sabre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Starting at 14th level, a wizard can use his action to consume the reserve of transmutation magic stored within his transmuter's stone in a single burst. His transmuter's stone is destroyed and can't be remade until he finishes a long rest.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i><b>Restore Life.</b> He can cast the Raise Dead spell on a creature he touches with the transmuter's stone, without expending a spell slot or needing to have the spell in his spellbook.</i></p><p> </p><p>He knows it’s possible.  But Caleb is only level twelve, and Jester is dead <i>now</i>.  A resurrection ritual fic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>219</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Widojest Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on the knife's edge of unwinding death</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for Widojest Week 2020 Day 5:  Teaching Spells OR Anything Spell/Magic-Related.</p><p>My exponential thanks goes to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/loquaciousquark/works">Quark</a> and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/fionavar/works">Perahn/Fionavar</a> (which, if you need even MORE awkward wizard in her life, check out her D&amp;D campaign write-ups featuring her Red Wizard, Khem) and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/elsinorerose/works">elsinore-rose</a> for being willing to beta and make this fic all that it should be.  Even if they don't really like Caleb.  Or even watch the show.  Your tweaks and demands are the best, even when I'm glaring at you while I fix things.  &lt;3</p><p>Thanks too for the lovely people of the Widojest server, especially KrazyKoala and Kaeli, for help with finding scenes and coming up with titles and just general encouragement, as well as for keeping the good ol' Widojenda alive.</p><p>I borrowed a bit of headcanon from <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/funnygirlthatbelle13/pseuds/funnygirlthatbelle13/works">funnygirlthatbelle13</a>'s <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636885">Helpless</a> series.  </p><p>Speaking of, at one point in the fic a lullaby is sung; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTztlMQjenI">here's what I had in mind</a>.  Other than that, I wrote the entire fic to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MilR3Z1sASY">"Short Hair"</a> track from the original <i>Mulan</i> OST.  Not required listening, just acknowledging my debt to it as well.  I snagged a bit of the title from the song "Grow" by the Oh Hellos, but that's just coincidence.</p><p>This is a long one, so saddle up, and I hope you enjoy the ride.  &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stupidity, in the end.  Everything boiled down to stupidity.<br/><br/>Stupid of them to assume Nicodranas would be safe.  Stupid of her to go off on her own.  Stupid of the rest of them not to look for her sooner.  Stupid of all of them to think they could handle anything.<br/><br/>Stupidity and pride.  Same as it had ever been.<br/><br/>And easier to hide behind, to retreat into the anger and the accusation than to grapple with the reality before them, which was Yasha laying Jester’s lifeless body in her bed while Marion Lavorre collapsed in the corner, sobbing.<br/><br/>Veth stood beside her, grasping her hand; Fjord stood in the doorway, helpless; Yasha gently arranged Jester’s limbs, smoothed her hair.  Beauregard grabbed Caduceus by the breastplate in the too-small room and yelled up into his face, “<em>Do something</em>.”<br/><br/>Caleb stood behind Fjord, and said nothing.<br/><br/>“I can’t,” Caduceus said, gently placing his hands on Beau’s shoulders.  “Not today.  It’s been too long.  Tomorrow,” he said, and of course he’d already said this once, twice before.  “Hey,” he said, as Beau gave a gut-wrenching cry, “c’mere,” and he gathered her into a hug.<br/><br/>A part of Caleb’s mind was infinitely aware of the number of seconds that ticked by holding nothing but the sound of two women crying, and another part of him found it soothing to count the seconds, ignoring what they held, what they meant.  <em>Eins, zwei, drei, vier</em>….  Time didn’t matter, anyway.  The necessary time had already passed, and now they were simply waiting for the time to come around again.  <em>Fünfundvierzig, </em><em>sechsundvierzig</em>, <em>siebenundvierzig</em>.  She fell outside the boundaries of <em>revivify</em>, and Caduceus hadn’t prepared <em>raise dead</em>.  He had the necessary diamond, so once he’d had a chance to sleep, he would cast the spell.  And once the spell was cast, all these dramatics would be meaningless.<br/><br/>As meaningless as existence seemed, always, to him, or at least as meaningless as it had once seemed, and now did again, not that anything about it had <em>changed</em>.  He certainly hadn’t.<br/><br/>Stupid.<br/><br/>“Hell,” Fjord said.<br/><br/>Words spilled forth from the Ruby of the Sea, mostly indistinguishable amidst her sobs except that he knew them intimately, needed no translation.  “I’ll never,” she gasped, “never forgive myself—”<br/><br/>“It’s not your fault,” Veth said, her creaky voice firm.  “It’s nobody’s fault.”<br/><br/>“It’s fucking Sharpe’s fault,” Beau rasped, pulling away from Caduceus and rubbing her knuckles into her eyes.  “We oughta—”<br/><br/>“Wait,” Caduceus said.  “There’s nothing we can do right now that we can’t do later.”<br/><br/>“Jester’s <em>dead</em>,” Beau said, as ragged a punch as she’d thrown when they first met her in Trostenwald, fleeing everything she’d eventually become, and Caleb closed his eyes.<br/><br/><em>Stupid</em>.<br/><br/>“It will be all right,” Yasha said, though to whom, he wasn’t sure.  “Caduceus will bring her back.”<br/><br/>Marion’s sobs caught.  “You are—you are sure,” she said, any pretension or polish completely stripped away, raw grief on utter display.  “You’re sure you can bring her back.”<br/><br/>“Well,” Caduceus said, measured and still gentle, though of course he was practiced at this, had spent his entire life comforting the living in the presence of the dead.  For perhaps the first time since leaving the Grove, he was in his element.  “There’s always an element of chance involved.  But I can try,” he said.  “I can try my best.”<br/><br/>Something in Caleb went cold.<br/><br/><em>Chance</em>.<br/><br/>He’d never been fond of chance; one man’s chance was another’s careful calculation, the kind of card-counting chicanery he’d used to stay one step ahead of utter starvation, the kind of benediction Trent Ikkithon had poured upon his students when he’d been the one to load the dice.  To rely on chance was simply the free-willed resignation of control, to abdicate responsibility and allow someone else to make the decision.<br/><br/>Who, in this case?  The Raven Queen?  The Wildmother?  Did he trust them to decide in her favor?<br/><br/>In one sense reliance on the divine was the ultimate abdication—that was simply faith, <em>ja</em>?  All the more reason to choose carefully where he wanted to place it.<br/><br/>The Raven Queen, the Wildmother; they had their own designs.  If he felt like being kind, they probably had to worry about the Chained Oblivion trying to break free.  And on such a cosmic scale, what was one life?<br/><br/>But luckily, and a frozen grimace came to his face, he knew a god whose concerns were more…personal.<br/><br/>“Traveler!” he called, eyes closed, standing in the hallway outside the room where Jester Lavorre lay dead in a bed, summoning in his voice all the faith she’d ever had, all the faith she’d taught him; and then he waited.<br/><br/>“Caleb, what the fuck?” Beau asked, but he waited.<br/><br/>He felt Fjord turn towards him, heard the rustle of Veth’s button necklace as she came to the door; a chance, perhaps, but his to take, and he waited, trusting, if not in the vague platitudes and reassurances of Fjord’s goddess, then in the real and specific concerns of one particular archfey.<br/><br/>And he felt the cloak brush his back, the too-pointed chin drop to his shoulder.  “I wondered when someone would think of me,” the Traveler said, almost pouting, and Caleb felt his shoulders slump with relief.  And then, in his ear and for him alone, “I thought it might be you.”<br/><br/>“Welcome,” Fjord said, in that rough and gracious way of his, and Caleb opened his eyes as the half-orc turned aside to allow them entry into the room.<br/><br/>Suddenly six pairs of eyes were on him, and when he glanced at the Traveler, the not-quite-a-god extended a graceful hand, gesturing him forward; and so everyone was watching as he went exactly where he had not wanted to go.<br/><br/>His feet faltered of their own accord when he reached the threshold; he forced his gaze to the far wall, letting his eyes drift to a near focus to avoid seeing the layers upon layers of art and scribbles upon it.  And then he stepped past Marion and Veth on the one side, and Caduceus and Beau on the other, and came to rest behind Yasha, using her as a shield against what lay in the bed beside her.<br/><br/>The Traveler swept in behind him, dropping his hood, and he heard Marion give a phlegmy gasp as the mane of red hair spilled down his back.  The somewhat-divine archfey ignored her, coming right alongside the bed and staring down at the body upon it.  Silence gathered in the room, a physical thing with dimensions he could measure, he thought, if he could only grasp it in his hands, compass it about.  Nonsense, and yet it crushed him, trapping the air in his lungs.  Beside him Yasha shifted her weight, one hand drifting to caress the hilt of her sword.<br/><br/>And then the Traveler sighed and said, “Mortals,” in a tone one might describe as reserved for discussing the weather, and the silence exploded.<br/><br/>“Yeah, and what about it?” Veth said, cocky and challenging, Veth who’d died and lived and died and lived again, and to his surprise the edge of a weary smile touched his lips.<br/><br/>“Oh,” the Traveler said, sighing again, clasping his hands over his heart in a manner reminiscent of a tattoo still glittering against lifeless skin.  “You’re just so prone to…<em>mortality</em>.”<br/><br/>“Hey now,” Fjord said.<br/><br/>“Don’t you <em>care</em>?” Beau demanded, as Yasha went on fingering the hilt of her sword.<br/><br/>“Of course I care!” he said, and he seemed, Caleb noted, actually offended.  “I love the girl, don’t get me wrong.  But she’s dead now.  Such a waste.”<br/><br/>Marion broke into fresh sobs; the Traveler didn’t appear to notice.  Or care.  Possibly both.<br/><br/>“But you can bring her back,” Yasha said, a threat in her voice.<br/><br/>“Well, now, here’s the thing,” the Traveler said, and he leaned against footboard of the bed as he had no doubt done a thousand times before.  “In order to exercise any <em>divine</em> magics, I have to make use of…a channel.”<br/><br/>“A cleric,” Caduceus said, a gentle correction that contained a note of disgust.<br/><br/>The Traveler waved a hand.  “Semantics,” he said, and Caduceus scowled.<br/><br/>“So can you bring her back?” Beau said, wiping her nose on the back of her fist.<br/><br/>“I <em>could</em> bring her back,” he said, “if there was someone present who had years of practice channeling my power and plenty of experience bending it to their purpose.  But unfortunately, the only person I know of who fits that description is currently mouldering in this bed.”<br/><br/>“Then why the fuck are you <em>here</em>?” Beau demanded, and before he could answer she launched herself at him, swinging with a raw, desperate fury.  Yasha’s sword rang as she drew it in one swift motion, readying the blade to follow up Beau’s attack, but the punches never landed; he vanished and reappeared in the opposite corner of the room.  She crashed into the footboard and clung to it, letting out a primal scream that slammed through the room, leaving Caleb as winded as if she’d punched him instead.<br/><br/>“Now, now,” the Traveler said, fussing with his cloak and not looking at anyone, “there’s no need for any of that.”<br/><br/>“She asked you a question,” Yasha snarled, blade still drawn.<br/><br/>“I would have thought that was obvious,” the Traveler said, blinking innocently.  “I’m here because I was summoned.”<br/><br/>Caleb winced, awaiting judgment, but instead Veth said, “Don’t you <em>want</em> her back?”<br/><br/>“Of course I want her back!” he snapped, offended again.<br/><br/>“Because she’s your most powerful follower,” Fjord said, almost growling.<br/><br/>The Traveler rolled his eyes.  “That’s part of it, yes,” he said, “but as I’ve already mentioned, she’s my favorite person, at least so long as she’s around.  Which she’s not, and which she won’t be, if someone doesn’t do something, and then I’ll have to go find a new favorite—”<br/><br/>This time Beau’s punch caught him square across the jaw, faster than Caleb could see, simply against the bed in one moment and in his face the next.  The room grew dark, and if the silence had been a physical thing then the manifestation of an angered archfey’s power was a thing with teeth, sharp and feral, pricking along his exposed skin.<br/><br/>“She’s <em>right there</em>,” Beau said, angry and in tears, every muscle in her face straining.<br/><br/>The Traveler rolled his head and settled her with a dark, fathomless gaze.  “No, she’s not,” he said, with the quiet certainty of centuries behind it.<br/><br/>“But she could be,” Caduceus said, and light crept along the floor, chasing the shadows’ skirts.<br/><br/>“She could be,” the Traveler conceded, not breaking Beau’s gaze, and the darkness faded.<br/><br/>“But if you can’t do it,” Fjord said, and when the Traveler glanced at him under raised eyebrows he added, “by yourself,” and the Traveler gave a slight nod, “then how?”<br/><br/>He spread his hands wide.  Beau took a step back.  “I’m open to suggestions,” he said.  “I assume you had <em>some</em>thing in mind?”<br/><br/>And now his gaze locked with Caleb’s.  He’d been expecting it, tried to prepare, but the Traveler was angry and let him see it, let him see the simmering rage in his eyes alongside the boredom and the disdain—and the worry, too, and that alone gave him the courage to continue.<br/><br/>Without breaking the almost-god’s gaze, he reached into his right pocket, past pouches of spell components, all the way to the bottom, where his fingers brushed something cool and reassuring.  He grasped it, tightened his fingers once around it like a talisman, a silent farewell, and then withdrew his hand from his pocket and held up a small, round, banded stone.<br/><br/>The Traveler’s gaze wavered from his for a mere second before locking in again.  He felt the confusion in the rest of the room, the sheer tension, the strain in Yasha’s arms as she held her sword and held back the rage; he knew with absolute certainty what lay in the bed, and how he felt about it; and he let it all fall away, save the bright-green gaze and the stone in his hand; and he waited.<br/><br/>And then the Traveler lifted his chin, and said, “Interesting.”<br/><br/>“You know it can be done,” he said flatly.<br/><br/>“It can,” he said.  “Do you know how?”<br/><br/>“No,” he said.  “But you do.”<br/><br/>He felt—<em>power</em>, in the words, in the quiet certainty she’d taught him by believing in the midst of every reason to doubt.  This was the power of faith; and in the broadening of the Traveler’s smile he knew he’d learn its consequences, too.<br/><br/>“I might,” he said, but lofty playfulness had replaced the rage and the boredom, and something in his chest gave a quiet sigh of relief.  “Oh, why not.  Let’s have a ritual, shall we?”<br/><br/>“A ritual?” Fjord said, and the rest of the room came crashing in upon him.<br/><br/>“Caleb?” Veth asked, and his knees trembled at the sound of her voice. <br/><br/>He forced it all aside again.  “Very well,” he said.  “What is the first step?”<br/><br/>“Well,” the Traveler said, wrapping himself in his cloak and shifting until he was not so much standing in the corner as inhabiting it, “first, we set up the ritual.  I believe your large pink-haired friend knows what to do?”<br/><br/>He looked to Caduceus, tried to avoid meeting his gaze, but of course Caduceus wouldn’t allow it; and so he endured the long, measuring look of concern, absorbing the full weight of his judgment, though he tried to hide it, and something of the pity, too, though that wasn’t quite the right word.  No matter.  Nothing mattered except the work that needed to be done; he would shoulder the weight, and so he waited until Caduceus finally said, “I think so, yes.  Are you sure?”<br/><br/>He’d been so <em>sure</em>, once upon a time, until he’d dashed against the rocks of his surety and nearly drowned.  And even now he had no aim, no goal, no <em>plan</em> for anything beyond this moment, anything other than the necessity of what must be done and the fact that at this moment he was the only one who could do it.  With help.<br/><br/>And so he nodded, and Caduceus frowned.  “We could wait—” he began.<br/><br/>“No,” Beau said, wiping her nose again, her knuckles bloody, “fuck it.  Let’s do this.”<br/><br/>He looked to Caduceus, who looked to the others, while the Traveler’s gaze never wavered from his face.  “I think,” Yasha said, with difficulty, “that if there’s a chance, then we should…”<br/><br/>Marion lifted her face from her heads.  “Or we could wait,” Caduceus said again.  “No need to rush anything.”<br/><br/>“Is there…?” Marion asked, looking between them, eyes wide and blinking rapidly, and Caleb’s chest went tight.<br/><br/>“<em>Ja</em>,” he said shortly.<br/><br/>“I’ve never heard of anything like this,” Caduceus said, frowning.<br/><br/>“There is power stored in this stone,” Caleb said, biting off the words, and he felt an instinctive urge welling up within him to cease wasting his time condescending with explanations beyond anyone’s understanding, to ignore them and simply do the work.  But he wasn’t Essek, or Ikithon; and so he said, as patiently as he could, “It can be channeled to this purpose.  He,” and he nodded at the Traveler without looking at him, “can help ensure it.”<br/><br/>Beau snorted, but not in skepticism.  “Is this true?” Caduceus asked, turning to the Traveler and crossing his arms. <br/><br/>“Would you trust me if I said yes?” the Traveler countered with a smirk.  Caleb pressed his lips together and looked to the floor.<br/><br/>Caduceus considered this for a moment, his head tilting this way and that as he mulled it over.  “No, that’s fair,” he said, gaze on the ceiling, rubbing his chin.<br/><br/>“I trust Caleb,” Veth said, in a tone that brooked no argument, settling the matter, and Caleb’s eyes fell closed against his will.  “If he says it’s all right, then I say we do it.”<br/><br/>“Right,” said Fjord wearily.  “So what say you, Caleb?  Is it all right?”<br/><br/>He felt all their gazes upon him, knew without looking what their expressions would be, could summon them out of his near-perfect memory without any effort at all.  They bore down upon him; he shouldered the weight.  “Yes,” he said, opening his eyes to look at the Traveler again; and in that moment his words were a prayer to the trickster god, seeking strength for the illusion of truth, “it is.”<br/><br/>“Of course it is,” the Traveler said dismissively, and if that didn’t convince the others then at least their attention had strayed from him.<br/><br/>Caleb watched as Caduceus looked from around the room, studying everyone’s face; he didn’t bother to do the same, the decision already made, waiting for the firbolg to catch up.  “Very well,” Caduceus said finally, his broad shoulders drooping as he sighed heavily.  Another moment passed, and then he straightened and turned to Marion.  “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he said, with a bow, “but do you have any candles we could borrow?”<br/><br/>Caleb let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.  Marion gaped at Caduceus for a moment, her eyes brilliant with tears; and then she smiled, and against his will Caleb saw her daughter in the expression.  “But of course,” she said.  “What do you think I do for a living?”<br/><br/>She rose from the floor, and for a moment they all held their breath, watching as she tightened her robe, brushed at her hair, lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, and took a deep breath of her own; every movement imbued with a magic he’d never be able to wield, beauty and strength of will, and hope above all.  But she was fragile, too, he knew, as Fjord bowed and held the door for her and she swept past them, and if this didn’t work…<br/><br/>He could not afford to worry.  He turned to Caduceus, who was studying the bed and its occupant with a slight frown.  “Do you think we could move that away from the wall?” Caduceus said finally.  “We’ve gotta be able to get all the way around her and we could just move her to the floor, but she looks so comfortable.”<br/><br/>“Of course,” Yasha said, and Caleb turned his head, expecting the other strong woman of the group to volunteer as well—<br/><br/>But of course she was lying in the bed and couldn’t speak.  Instead, Fjord stepped forward to help, and Caleb returned his attention to Caduceus, feeling panic pooling around his ankles.  “What next?” he asked quietly.<br/><br/>Caduceus blinked and looked at him again, but not so harshly this time, just disappointed and resigned.  “Well,” he said, under the sound of the bed scraping across the floor, “it helps if you a draw a ritual circle, and light the candles, and then of course there’s the offering stage, and then you just…cast it.”  He studied Caleb a moment more and then said, “I won’t insult you by asking again if you’re sure.”<br/><br/>“Thank you,” he said, and the gratitude he felt was suddenly very real, if nervous and giddy.  “A ritual circle?  Will you be drawing it?”<br/><br/>“No,” Caduceus said, measured and thoughtful.  “If you’re casting it, you should draw it.”<br/><br/>He blinked.  “And what does it look like?”<br/><br/>Caduceus went on looking thoughtful, <em>eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, </em>not that it mattered, time didn’t <em>matter</em>, stupid, and then instead of answering directly he went to the pink haversack in the far corner of the room, opposite where the Traveler continued to supervise, if silently, and in a moment returned carrying a book.  A largeish book, the cover worn and also nigh unreadable due to the layers upon layers of scribbles, aside from the deep groves forming the holy symbol of the Traveler and three words in bright pink ink across the top:  PRIVATE KEEP OUT.<br/><br/>“Oh,” he said, his fingers curling into his palms even as he tried to reach for it, wincing as Caduceus opened it where they could both see and began flipping through the pages.<br/><br/>He forced himself to keep his eyes open, to <em>not care</em> because he had <em>work to do</em>, but he caught a glimpse of a doodled Fey King and felt his resolve continue to slip, the panic rising to his knees.  He took a breath and held it until Caduceus said, “Ah, here we go,” and he let his eyes focus on the image before him.<br/><br/>Or rather, the images.  On the verso, an intricate circle, round and yet managing to give the impression of leafy vines twining around each other.  Little candles at six points around it, and intertwining branches connecting them across the circle.  And on the recto, the world—no, the <em>planes</em>, so many interlocking circles, crossing from point to point—the six candles again, but joined by cosmic chaos.  His head hurt just looking at it.<br/><br/>“We were each taught it at about the same time,” Caduceus said, his voice somewhere above Caleb’s head.  “She wanted to compare what we were given, so I drew that,” and he pointed, unnecessarily, to the circle of vines, “and she drew that.”<br/><br/>“Magnificent,” Caleb said, memorizing the shapes even as Caduceus traced them, and he meant it.  The designs contained none of the runes or symbols he was familiar with, and yet the patterns still fell exactly as he would expect, given the nature of the magic.  The similarity gave him…confidence, provided some support for his earlier charade.  There was work to be done, and the odds tipped in his favor.<br/><br/>“Why thank you,” the Traveler said, and Caleb looked to him and he was smiling again, eyes fathomless and calculating.  The element of chaos in the equation, and he could not escape it.<br/><br/>Even still, he’d prefer chaos to chance any day, and so he reached into his pocket for his chalk and set about doing the work.<br/><br/>He filled the floor with sigils, now and then tracing over creative carvings in the wood.  They clustered in odd places, and each cluster exhibited a different level of artistic skill, but he pushed aside his questions, the temptation to fall into maudlin contemplation, and focused his mind’s eye on the circle.  The circles upon circles, and he drew and drew until the chalk was little more than a nub between his fingers. <br/><br/>As he finished the last stroke he sat back on his haunches and blinked.  The room before him was empty aside from the bed, and when he looked over his shoulder he saw the rest of them gathered in a huddle by the door, and the Traveler still lounging in the other corner, dancing lights across his fingers in apparent boredom.<br/><br/>“Are we ready?” Fjord asked.<br/><br/>“Almost,” Caduceus said, and he turned to Marion, who’d apparently brought pillows for everyone in addition to the candles she held in her arms.  He took six of them, and Caleb couldn’t escape the trust in her white eyes, nor the serious acceptance Caduceus gave her in return and then turned on him as he brought the candles to the circle.<br/><br/><em>Ja</em>, <em>ja</em>, he thought, the only part of him he was allowing to think, <em>they’re all counting on you.  So do the work.</em><br/><br/>He took the candles and arranged them at the far edges of the planes, Elyisum, Hades, Limbo, Mechanus, the Feywild, the Shadowfell.  He lit each of them and then stood beside the bed with his arms dangling at his sides, staring out the tiny window at the bright blue sky beyond.<br/><br/>Her whole world, that.<br/><br/>“<em>Now</em> are we ready?” Veth broke in impatiently, and he turned and, finding he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze, looked to the Traveler instead.<br/><br/>“Hm?” the Traveler said as he leaned forward to inspect Caleb’s circle.  Beau growled again, but only a fool would believe his indifference and Caleb could not afford to be foolish.  “Oh, certainly.  Lovely work.”<br/><br/>“I included a few dicks,” Caleb said, “just for you.”<br/><br/>The Traveler’s gaze flicked to his, a pointed smile curling across his lips.  “She taught you well,” he said softly, just for him, and he felt his surety waver, the ground beneath him unsteady for a moment.  But only a moment; the archfey broke his gaze and straightened up, lifting a lazy finger and pointing it at the floor, and suddenly the whole circle glowed, the candles flickering with green flame, and Caleb felt the magic swirling around him, invisible threads circling and coursing through him, anchoring him to the spell.<br/><br/>The Traveler resuming his lounging as he said, “Well, then, who’s going to assist with the ritual?”<br/><br/>They all stared at him.  “Assist—Caleb?” Veth said, always first to support him, always first by his side. <br/><br/><em>No</em>, he wanted to say, wanted to protect her from the path he had chosen—but to do so would require thinking beyond this moment, beyond the question of assistance, and he—couldn’t.<br/><br/>The Traveler spoke for him.  “No.  Well, yes.  Well, sort of.”  His expression went pinched and pensive, as if he resented having to give explanations.  “You can’t help him cast the spell, but you can…strengthen the call.”<br/><br/>“The call?” Fjord said, leaning in as if to make sure he’d heard correctly.  “What, exactly, are we calling?”<br/><br/>“Her soul, of course,” he said, and Fjord flinched away and winced.  “That’s what this is all about, you know, creating a bridge and then calling her across it.”<br/><br/>“And we can strengthen that call?” Beau said, as suspicious as Fjord.  “Why?”<br/><br/>The Traveler rolled his eyes.  “Because it’s hard to hear things in the land of the dead.  There’s no guarantee she’ll even hear what you say, but if she does, then that will help her find her way.  Assuming she wants to come back, of course.”<br/><br/>“Pardon?” Yasha said.<br/><br/>“She’ll want to come back,” the Traveler said with perfect assurance.<br/><br/>Ice crept into Caleb’s chest again; he risked looking away from the almost-god, steadied himself on the sight of Marion, clutching a pillow to her chest as she glared at her daughter’s one-time best friend.  Yes.  She’d want to come back.<br/><br/>“So what do we actually…do?” Veth asked, practical and pragmatic, bringing them back to the work at hand.  Priceless and perfect.<br/><br/>The Traveler shrugged.  “Anything.”<br/><br/>“Anything?”<br/><br/>“Anything you think would help remind her why she wants to come back,” Caduceus clarified, gentle and annoyed.  “Remind her of her favorite things, or—or you can give her something you think she’d like.  It can be talking, it can be…this,” he said, holding up her sketchbook, “maybe, or something like it.”<br/><br/>“But you do have to diversify,” the Traveler said.  “I’m not going to sit through a bunch of long-winded speeches about how very much everyone loves her and hopes she’ll return.  And neither would she,” he said, as Caduceus opened his mouth again.<br/><br/>“Very well,” Caleb said, and they all looked to him, Beau and Yasha as if they were just remembering whose fault this was, the others with more concern.  He ignored them and focused on the one person not looking at him, her gaze still fixed on the Traveler.  “Frau Lavorre,” he said, and she startled and turned her beauty upon him, and he bowed, as much in respect as for the excuse to look away.  “Would you like to…begin?”<br/><br/>“Oh,” she said, “I don’t know—”<br/><br/>The Traveler said something in Infernal; Caleb still couldn’t understand it, though he’d at least learned to recognize it, but Marion’s eyes went wide.  “It’s her favorite,” the archfey said, surprisingly gentle, and when she took a choked breath he gave her a little nod.<br/><br/>“All right,” she said, holding tight to her pillow for another moment, closing her eyes and taking another breath, letting it go slowly.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “could I trouble someone for—thank you,” she said, as Caduceus produced a handkerchief.  He gently took the pillow from her as she accepted the handkerchief and blew her nose, and Caleb again was grateful, <em>grateful</em> for the presence of someone who knew how to comfort, how to put people at their ease.  He knew nothing other than the magic flowing through the room, swirling along the lines he’d drawn, and even that he knew very little, its source alien, its courses unfamiliar.  But he grasped it in his hands all the same and held himself firm, for it had to be done.<br/><br/>Marion sniffed once more, then tried to offer Caduceus his handkerchief.  “Keep it,” he said, daring to close his hands around hers.  “You might need it again soon.”<br/><br/>And she laughed at that, a little despairing but a laugh nonetheless, and with a watery smile she turned towards the circle of light, looking past Caleb where he stood at the foot of the bed.  Gingerly, bravely, she stepped into the circle, and he felt her steps like ripples across the planes, the magic curious, <em>sentient</em> in a way magic was not supposed to be.  He looked to the Traveler as Marion made her way to the bed, but the archfey’s narrow gaze was intense upon Jester’s mother as she half-sat on the edge of the bed as she’d no doubt done countless times before—and for a moment he saw not Marion Lavorre but Una Ermendrud holding the stub of a candle in a little room in Blumenthal, running a hand across his forehead and whispering <em>alles gut</em>.<br/><br/>The magic trembled with him and he blinked the image away, took a deep breath through his nose—and then held it, because Marion Lavorre began to sing.<br/><br/>He’d heard Infernal used in rebukes and in haunted whispers, thought of it as a harsh, cold language, one that could cut and freeze to the bone.  But in the voice of the Ruby of the Sea he heard longing, and love, gentle care and playful amusement; and he wondered if Infernal had words for those things, other than to mock them, or if she’d fashioned them herself.  She sang a lullaby to her sleeping child, and he stood and leaned his back against the foot of the bed and trained his gaze on the wall next to the Traveler and tried, desperately, to empty himself of everything except the magic and the song, though with every note he felt she might find the pitch at which he shattered and destroyed in turn everything they’d accomplished—<br/><br/>he couldn’t—<em>breathe</em>—<br/><br/>But the magic wove itself around him, pulled and tugged insistently, and he blinked again and saw with a sight that wasn’t his, exactly, how the music fed the spell, how the magic wound itself up around the song falling forth from Marion’s lips and dragged the love and the longing into itself, pouring power into the lines he’d drawn, widening the path, smoothing the way; but building something, too, something that felt like a kind of pressure, but not like the weight of everyone he bore on his shoulders, something internal, welling up—but only so much; the song was not the only gift.<br/><br/>Lost in the magic, in trying to find the shape of it, to make sense of its paradoxical arrangement, he almost didn’t notice when she shifted from singing into a gentle hum; only as the last note faded, and the bright glowing green of the circle went quiescent again, did he find himself standing in the room again with solid wood under his feet and, strangely, his transmuter’s stone in his hand.  The others seemed just as spellbound, though he doubted they saw quite what he had; and then he heard a noise and realized Beau was crying again, in ugly sobs as only Beau could, and that his own cheeks were wet, though he didn’t remember shedding tears.<br/><br/>He should say something, he thought dimly, finally daring to turn towards Marion where she sat on the bed, the magic swirling around his ankles, thicker and deeper than he remembered.  But he’d only managed a half-turn when she looked up from her daughter’s body and met the Traveler’s gaze.  “You love her?” she said, question and accusation all at once.<br/><br/>The Traveler blinked, the barest hint of ruffled feathers about his shoulders, and Caleb watched him open his mouth, preparing to bluster; watched him close it, and hold Marion’s gaze without flinching; and finally watched him exhale with a shake of his head, and simply say, “Yes.”<br/><br/>Marion pressed her lips together, her white eyes reminding him suddenly of Shakäste, sightless and seeing far more than anyone else could imagine.  “Then bring her back,” she said, and in one swift motion she rose and crossed the room, more regal than the Bright Queen with all her centuries of leadership could ever hope to be, and stood by Caduceus, and waited.<br/><br/>The Traveler didn’t reply, merely smiled; but it was not a nice smile, and when he met Caleb’s eyes it widened, as though she’d thrown the noose over both their necks.  <em>You believe?</em> it asked; <em>you love her?</em> and Caleb swallowed hard, and had to look away.<br/><br/>“Lovely as always, milady,” the Traveler said, his not-nice smile now more of a feral grin as he turned to the others.  “Who’s next?”<br/><br/>A shuffling amongst the group, as if everyone shifted from one foot to the other and surprised the person next to them in so doing, except for Caduceus, who towered over them all, watchful.  Beau wiped her nose on her fist again and scowled, shoulders heaving; Yasha put a hand on her shoulder but looked towards the bed, opened her mouth, and closed it again; and Caleb didn’t move from his spot where they all seemed to have forgotten he existed.  Better that way.<br/><br/>And then Fjord said, “I’ll try.”<br/><br/> “Oh good,” Veth said, relieved and approving, and Caleb’s chest went traitorously tight.  <em>Better that way</em>.<br/><br/>The half-orc still looked cautious, and Caduceus gave him a pat on the shoulder that turned into a gentle push.  His eyes met Caleb’s as he walked by, and for a moment they were standing in the High Richter’s bedroom with the Sword of Fathoms held to Caleb’s throat, their gazes hard and unyielding, untrusting, neither willing to strike nor to back down.<br/><br/>But time—<em>meaningful</em> time, time that had <em>mattered</em>—had passed since then, enough to ease the hardness to respect and the suspicion to concern, at least in Fjord’s eyes; but Caleb had work to do and to acknowledge his concern would be to acknowledge his doubt, and <em>someone</em> had to believe.  He managed a curt nod and resumed staring at the opposite wall; but he felt Fjord stop by the head of the bed, felt the magic rouse itself to curiosity and lap at the half-orc’s ankles.<br/><br/>“Hey, Jester,” he began, “it’s me, Fjord.  You—probably realized that already, of course.”  He snorted a laugh and Caleb crossed his arms.  “You know, you’re the only one who heard me introduce myself like this.  Everyone else got the little white lie—the first of so many lies,” he said, slowly, “not all of them—harmless—and I lied to you too, and I’m sorry—but what I’m trying to say is,” and here he took a breath, as if steeling himself, “you were the first to see something of who I really am, and I always felt as if you—saw me.  That even when I was at my worst, pretending to be everything I’m not, you still—knew me, and liked me as I was, even when I didn’t.  Especially if I,” and he laughed quietly, self-deprecation bleeding out of the sound, “didn’t.”<br/><br/>The magic drew his words into itself, eager and accepting, and Caleb again felt the pressure building in his lungs, found himself struggling to breathe.  “And it’s not just me,” Fjord continued.  “I know that any person standing in this room could say the same of you.  You have always believed—in all of us, and I don’t know if we ever thanked you for that.  I don’t know if I,” and Fjord, who wielded words like the edge of a finely honed blade; Fjord, who always knew when to threaten and when to flatter, who’d been the butt of their jokes and the only reason they were still alive, the smoothest talker in the Mighty Nein—Fjord <em>choked</em>, his voice catching on something rough and sharp.  “If I,” he tried again, and finally he cleared his throat and said, hoarsely, “ever thanked you.<br/><br/>“So, Jester,” he said, and then he paused, and in the silence Beau drew a raggedy breath and Caleb filled the blankness in his mind with magic, “I—hope you’ll…come back to us.  So that we—so that I—can thank you.  And so that perhaps in turn…we can…see you better, too.”<br/><br/>Seconds ticked by in silence; he sounded finished, but the magic stayed bright, and hungry, and just as Caleb gave in and glanced at him, he bowed his head and said, “Please.  Come back.”<br/><br/>The candles flared as the magic devoured his words and swelled, waves and currents swirling around Caleb’s waist and in his lungs as if seeking to pull him under and drown him, but not yet, not yet, and he fought for breath as the light quieted and Fjord stepped out of the circle—and so easily, and how, <em>how</em> could he not feel what Caleb felt as he braced his feet against the floor and gripped the stone in his hands and <em>held</em> <em>the spell</em>, even as the spell held him.<br/><br/>“Stirring,” the Traveler said dryly, “truly,” but he glanced at Caleb with a glimmer of respect, the slightest nod of approval, before turning his lofty and disinterested gaze on the rest of the Nein.  “Well, who’s next?  One more, I think, ought to do the trick.”<br/><br/>Another round of shuffling.  “Fuck,” Beau said, digging her fists into her eyes.<br/><br/>“Do you want to go?” Veth said, gently, encouragingly, and Caleb wondered what she knew, what Beau had told her that she hadn’t told him.<br/><br/>“Yes—no—” she said, angry and defensive and terrified, and Caleb’s heart bled for her as it couldn’t for—anyone—else—but Beau was his sister, forged in the same Empire’s fire; sharing her pain was safe, familiar territory, anger at injustice, determination to bring about change, no matter the cost in their blood—so long as it was only their blood, they’d bleed and bleed again if they had to.  This was just another cut, just another—<br/><br/>“I,” Yasha said, and everyone looked to her in surprise, startled, as her eyes darted from the bed to Beau.  “That is, if you don’t want to,” she said to Beau, who stared at her, shoulders heaving, eyes wary and wild.  “I think I—I might have something that will help.”<br/><br/>Silence hung in the air, as awkward and fumbling as Yasha herself as she fiddled with a pouch on her belt and waited for Beau’s response.  “Well,” Caduceus said, as it became apparent no one else was going to speak, “that would be nice.”<br/><br/>“Only if—if no one else—wants…” she said, now looking at each of them in turn a little desperately.  But she didn’t look to Caleb, and he didn’t know whether to be grateful or—something, he wasn’t sure what, and the taut lines of magic in his hands absorbed the rest of his coherent thought.<br/><br/>Beau sniffed, long and hard.  “Nah,” she said.  “You do it.  I’d probably just end up…yelling.”<br/><br/>“You’re sure,” Yasha said, staring at her, startled in turn.<br/><br/>“Yeah,” Beau said, and gave her a pathetic punch in the arm.  “Go…get her.”<br/><br/>They shared a sad smile, and then Caduceus put a gentle hand on her shoulder and Veth reached and gave her hand a squeeze, and Yasha swallowed hard and nodded at them both.  “You got this,” Fjord said, and she squared her shoulders and turned away from them all.<br/><br/>But away from them meant towards Caleb, and the moment she stepped into the circle the magic came alive in his hands, a bucking bronco at the reins, and he tightened his grip and watched as she walked by, the magic eddying in her wake.<br/><br/>And then she stopped, and before he quite realized what she was doing, she put a hand on his shoulder and he nearly buckled under the weight of it, though the warmth was a comfort.  He looked up at her—stupid, instinctive—and she caught his gaze, her eyes brimming with the same contrast, the blue a bright flame of concern, the violet a twilight of pathos.<br/><br/><em>Oh</em>, he thought, <em>no</em>, and then—<br/><br/>“Are you okay?” she asked him in her impossibly soft voice, a giant looming over him with the whisper of a breeze on a blade of grass.<br/><br/>She asked him, Yasha who looked him in the eyes, Yasha who knew, who <em>knew</em> how he felt and what he was feeling and this was not safe, was not safe at all, not the comfort of a hearthfire but the howl of a blizzard stripping away his coat.  He felt his control slipping, the weight of the burden crushing his spine, the magic rushing into his lungs just as eager to drag him to hell as it would be to drag—<br/><br/><em>I don’t need to tell you who</em><br/><br/>—out of it—<br/><br/>He shut his eyes and grit his teeth.  He had <em>work to do</em> and it was <em>his to do</em> and so he would <em>do it</em>, regardless of his feelings, regardless of everyone’s apparently endless need to worry about insignificant details.  What mattered was the magic, and bending it to his will, and if he couldn’t manage that he could channel it in the direction it was meant to go, and if even that turned out to be beyond him then he would at least hold it within its bindings for as long as he could, and trust that faith would take care of the rest.<br/><br/>The hand slipped from his shoulder, but her presence remained, <em>eins, zwei, drei</em>, precious seconds of control ticking away in his mind as the magic grew bored with her presence, grew restless, and finally he ground out, “Get on with it.”<br/><br/>“All right,” she said, just as softly, and then she stepped past him.  He kept his eyes shut and pressed his back against the foot of the bed until he felt the wood digging against his spine, unyielding, and he borrowed its strength as Yasha began to speak.<br/><br/>“So,” she said, “it’s not much, but I—you’ve been such a help to me, with finding flowers and everything, and I,” and he heard a rustling, and focused on the wood at his back, “I wanted to show you this.  You know, in Xhorhas, we don’t have many—have many plants, and I—but we have this one,” she said, and Caleb did not open his eyes.  “It’s—you know, I don’t know if it has a name.  I always called it the Bloomer, but that’s not much of a…anyway, they grow sometimes.”<br/><br/>She was babbling, he thought dimly, and she so rarely strung more than five words together, but she didn’t sound <em>nervous</em>.  She sounded the way he felt when he had too many things to explain and no idea where to start; she sounded eager, even as she tripped over herself.<br/><br/>“I mean,” she was saying, “obviously they grow, but—they bloom, too, kind of this dark purple, and it’s really pretty.  This one’s faded.  I’m sorry.  Thing is,” she said, and he could imagine her giving herself a little shake, “if you find one, or plant one, it’ll bloom in the autumn, just one little tiny flower, and it only lasts for a day and then it dies, and all winter it just lies around looking ugly and dead, like every—almost everything else in the Wastes.<br/><br/>“But you don’t cut it back!” she said.  “And if you don’t—if you leave it, all ugly and dead, then—then in the spring it blooms again, only—only dozens of blossoms, dozens of—of flowers where…and anyway,” she said, and his brow furrowed over his closed eyes, a sharp stab of pain at the new hesitance in her voice, “this was…I found one of them, soon after I found the Stormlord, and it was spring, and—it’s the first flower I ever picked for—for Zuala and I…”  She took a breath, and he knew without looking that she laid the flower upon the woman in the bed.  “I want you to have it.”<br/><br/>He’d been listening too closely, he realized, as the magic roared to life around the stone in his hands.  Within the darkness he saw it take hold of the flower, saw it bloom and die and then burst into bloom again, spilling over the bed, onto the floor, more blossoms than could be counted, and as they filled the circle they piled atop each other, atop <em>him</em>, and then they were simply magic again, magic filling his lungs to bursting and rising up to his chin, encompassing the bed and its corpse like water rushing to fill an underground cavern.  He felt his feet trying to leave the floor and he squeezed his eyes shut and forced air into his lungs, real air, felt the solid wood at his back, gripped the hot hard stone in his hands, anchored himself to the floor and sucked in another breath, and another, forcing the magic to wait, to <em>wait</em>, even as the pressure in his lungs howled for release.<br/><br/>And then Yasha stepped out of the circle and the magic hushed, almost coyly, as if he could forget it for a moment when it surrounded him inside and out, as if it hoped he might let go.  He tightened his fists and opened his eyes.<br/><br/>The others were giving Yasha quiet nods and hugs; the Traveler was looking at him, the same humorless grin on his pointed face, all sharp edges and teeth.  For a moment cold fear pierced his heart; and then he returned the smile in kind, as dangerous and biting as he could muster, and the archfey’s eyes sparked with delight.<br/><br/>“Well then,” the Traveler said, his eyes never leaving Caleb’s, “that’s that, isn’t it.”<br/><br/>“So what now?” Fjord asked, but Caleb barely heard him over the rush of magic and the pounding of his own heart in his ears.<br/><br/>“Now,” the Traveler said, “we cast the spell.”<br/><br/>“And how,” Yasha said slowly, as once again no one moved and silence crept into the room, “do we do that, exactly?”<br/><br/>The Traveler drew a breath, not quite glancing away as he turned his head towards her, playful spite dancing in his eyes; and then, as he lifted a hand and began to point a finger, Beau said, “If you fuck this up, I will kill you.”<br/><br/>Now he did look away, and Caleb mustered what little willpower he had not devoted towards anchoring, anchoring, <em>anchoring</em>, dragging everything into his hands and making it <em>wait</em>, to keep from sucking in a ragged breath.  <em>Breathe</em>, <em>zwei, drei, fünf</em>, out, <em>sechs, sieben, acht</em>.<br/><br/>“Duly noted,” the Traveler said dryly, touching his jaw, which by all rights ought to have been black and blue, though he did bother to glare at her.  “But I’m afraid it’s not just up to me,” and after another considering glance at the rest of them, suddenly he was within the circle an arm’s length away from Caleb, still running his fingers over his own jaw as he considered him.  “Speaking of which, we should talk.”<br/><br/>“<em>Ja</em>,” Caleb said, equally dry, though thinking of himself as an archfey’s equal was madness at best.<br/><br/>“Not here,” he said, with narrow-eyed consideration, and before Caleb could open his mouth to protest he suddenly reached out and took Caleb’s hands in his own.  “Allow me,” he said, and when Caleb narrowed his own eyes he said, “Just for a moment.”<br/><br/>The magic slithered around the Traveler like waves returning to the sea, almost as if he was part of it, <em>was</em> it, which of course he was, after some form or fashion, and Caleb’s every instinct screamed treachery, that this was some kind of—of illusion, that if he gave the magic to its source it would only free itself for chaos; this was <em>his</em> spell and <em>his</em> work and <em>he</em>—<br/><br/>—<em>believed</em>; <em>you love her?</em> whispered again, <em>do you trust her</em>; and he held the Traveler’s gaze and released his hold on the stone.<br/><br/>The Traveler’s palm was flat against his, catching it before it had a chance to fall.  “Very good,” he said softly, dangerous but not a danger, at least not yet.  “Now, close your eyes—this will only take a moment—”<br/><br/>Caleb closed his eyes, and suddenly his limbs felt heavy, but just as swiftly he felt himself standing straight again, almost lighter, somehow, freer perhaps, and the instant he had that thought he opened his eyes.<br/><br/>He stood in a clearing in the woods, the pink-purple-blues of the dusky sky filling the gap in the canopy, the leaves of the trees a deep emerald he’d never seen before, their bark a rich brown studded with faintly twinkling lights.  The same lights suffused the clearing; the grass beneath his feet was short and soft, interspersed with moss throughout, and little white flowers that seemed to bloom and fade in bursts before his eyes.<br/><br/>“This is a dream,” he said aloud.<br/><br/>“Very good,” said the Traveler, and he looked over his left shoulder and up, up to where the archfey sat upon a wide branch in the nearest tree.<br/><br/>“Mine,” he said again, definitive, measuring the dimensions of the space.<br/><br/>“More or less.  You’re the one who can dream, in any case.”<br/><br/>“And this is…” he scanned the sky again, the few unfamiliar stars barely beginning to shine, then looked to the ground, the greens saturated beyond any material hue, “your…realm?”<br/><br/>“Right again,” he said, “more or less.”<br/><br/>He imagined—Frumpkin; and a moment later he felt a familiar slinking around his legs, and without thinking he stooped and picked up his cat.  And then held him up, and looked him in the eyes; but he still looked like a cat, though an intelligent mischief danced in his eyes before he rewarded Caleb with a blep.<br/><br/>“Nice try,” the Traveler said, “but once bound they’re notorious for refusing to reveal their true forms.  Embarrassment, I think, at how they’ve allowed themselves to be reduced.”<br/><br/>“He’s always said he likes being a cat,” Caleb said, loosening his grip ever so slightly, giving Frumpkin the opportunity to choose—and the cat who was made of fairy stuff, who belonged to <em>this</em> realm, not his, let out a <em>meow</em> and then hit him square in the chest, knocking the wind from him as he climbed up to perch on his shoulders.  Caleb stumbled, doing his best to regain his footing, as Frumpkin settled around his neck and began purring, and the warmth and the—<em>relief</em>—and his knees almost buckled again.<br/><br/>He didn’t deserve comfort.  More to the point, he couldn’t <em>stand</em> it, because he was weak and he craved it and if he gave in to the black yawning sorrow he was refusing to acknowledge he would not be able to—to—<br/><br/>“Well then,” the Traveler said, mercifully breaking into his thoughts—and how much of his thoughts could he read, he wondered, in this strange fey dream, and he resolved not to have any beyond the immediate moment, “to each his own.  Nice stone, by the way.”<br/><br/>He finally turned, forced himself to look up, though the Traveler’s eyes were on the transmuter’s stone as he held it between his thumb and forefinger, turning it this way and that.  “Thank you,” Caleb finally said, for lack of anything else.<br/><br/>The Traveler hummed, and then he said, still examining it, “And you’re willing to part with it?”<br/><br/>He shrugged, the weight of Frumpkin akin to the squirm of guilt he felt.  “I know how to make another one.”<br/><br/>“Ah, yes,” the Traveler said.  “A backup plan.  Of course.  Very smart.  Smarter than the rest of them,” he said, and the squirm of guilt turned into a leaden stone.  The Traveler glanced at him, just long enough to suggest that he’d noticed, and then he said carelessly, turning the stone over and over, “They simply gave all they had.  A lullaby to a child who might never wake up.  The words he’d never had the courage to say.  A flower from beyond the grave.  Precious gifts, those.”<br/><br/>Caleb scowled, his brow furrowing, his jaw jutting forward.  “I presume you brought me here to tell me how to cast the spell.”<br/><br/>The Traveler laughed aloud.  “Be careful with your presumptions,” he said, “especially here, where so very little is as it seems.  But!  You have a point.”<br/><br/>In a flash he stood before Caleb, almost too close for comfort, wearing not the green cloak of his godhood but fine, sleeveless vestments in blue and green, high-collared and flowing as he crossed his arms, then raised his free hand to his chin and pressed a finger to his lips, the other hand still twirling the stone in his fingers.  Caleb stared determinedly at a point just over his shoulder as he inspected him and thought very hard about the weight of Frumpkin on his shoulders.<br/><br/>“Time is ticking,” he said as the archfey continued to consider him, which prompted a chuckle.<br/><br/>“Well,” he said, “now that’s the beauty of a dream, isn’t it.  And this place,” he said, taking one step back in order to sweep at the clearing around them.  “We’re both here and not here, and so we can…fudge what we need to.”<br/><br/>“Fascinating,” Caleb said, and meant it.<br/><br/>“Only in small increments,” the Traveler said, an amused warning, “and only moving forward.  Never backward.  I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way.”<br/><br/>His eyes flashed to the archfey’s before he could stop himself, and the knowing amusement in his eyes narrowed just a fraction, honing in on his target.  “Ah,” the Traveler said, “and now we’re onto something.<br/><br/>“You’re a fascinating one, you know,” he said, and Caleb drew a breath and he waved his hand, cutting him off.  “I don’t mean all the woe is me trauma and tragedy of your life,” he said, rolling his eyes before settling his gaze upon him again, incisive and careless all at once.  “I mean the fact that you’re one of the few people out there who <em>believe</em> in me, aside from that ragtag assembly that call themselves my followers.  It’s very interesting.  You’ve never once asked me for anything,” he said, which wasn’t strictly true and Caleb opened his mouth again but he barreled on, “and yet I <em>feel</em> the power of your belief.  It’s really rather refreshing.  Reminds me of the early days.  When I could just <em>be</em>, and shower blessings on whomever I wished.”<br/><br/>“That’s how this all started,” he said, “<em>ja</em>?”<br/><br/>He quirked his eyebrows.  “More or less,” he said, unoffended.  “Her belief was so…<em>pure</em>.  I couldn’t help myself but give her everything she wanted.  As much as I could,” he amended.  “Not that I always…” and he looked skyward as he mulled over the words, exasperated and begrudging, “…understood what it was that she wanted.”<br/><br/>“A friend,” Caleb said before he could stop himself, “above all else.”<br/><br/>“Yes,” he said slowly, glancing at Caleb out of the corner of his eye, measuring him again.  “And I suppose I did too.”<br/><br/>They regarded each other a moment, and again Caleb felt the cold trickle of a warning down his spine at the thought of <em>regarding</em> an <em>archfey</em> as if the remote possibility of their having any equal footing existed.  Especially in a dream set in the Feywild.  But Frumpkin weighed on his shoulders and purred in his ear and reminded him—of too many things—that he should get to work, and he couldn’t do the work without the archfey and he had to <em>believe</em> but he also had to <em>understand</em>, had to demand explanations, had to present himself as worth the effort of providing them.  And so he clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together and met the Traveler’s gaze and lifted his chin, and waited.<br/><br/>For his part, the glib amusement in the Traveler’s expression slowly slipped into something harder, something wiser and older and <em>fey</em>, but determined, too, and at last he said, “There are two things you should know, before you attempt to cast this spell.”<br/><br/>Caleb swallowed, his hand instinctively curling around a stone that wasn’t there.<br/><br/>“First, you have to believe that she’ll come when you call,” he said, and again he looked him up and down, a sweeping glance that swallowed him up and spit him out without much effort at all.  “You have to set aside anything but the conviction that you are the person to make the call, better than anyone else around you.  And I think you can do that,” he said, judge and executioner all at once.  “You may have your doubts, but there’s arrogance enough to cover for it, I’d wager, and scrape together something akin to pride, yes?”<br/><br/>The weight on his shoulders; the burden he’d chosen to bear.  The work he had to do because he was the one who had to do it.  “<em>Ja</em>,” he said, though the word came with difficulty, and he had to swallow hard again, his throat going dry.<br/><br/>“Good,” he said, dismissive, already leaning forward so that their gazes were level.  “And second, you have to want her back.”<br/><br/>He wanted Caleb to sputter, to protest; he could <em>feel</em> the anticipation in his gaze, the dark delight at the thought of it, and so he ground his teeth together and listened to Frumpkin’s purrs and refused to open his mouth.<br/><br/>The Traveler sniffed and straightened a little, not quite ruffled, not quite disappointed.  “Yes, yes, of course you want her back,” he said with a wave of his hand, supplying the words when Caleb wouldn’t.  His eyes roamed the clearing; Caleb’s never left his face.  “But that’s not what I <em>mean</em>.”<br/><br/>“Obviously,” Caleb said, his silence failing him, and the glance the Traveler shot him was not amused.<br/><br/>“You want to do the impossible?” he said, a question to which he clearly knew the answer, and Caleb went cold.  “Bend reality to your will? What do you think this is?” <br/><br/>Caleb’s heart pounded in his chest as he instinctively shook his head, and the Traveler bared his teeth in a terrible grin, hooked and devilish and supremely unconcerned as he leaned in again and said, “Here’s what happens,” his face filling Caleb’s vision, eyes green and glittering.  “All that magic—all that power—you gather it all up within you and you release it in the call, one primal scream that echoes across the planes and ripples the threads of Fate—but only so far as you want her back.  You can’t just say, ‘oh, please, come back,’” he said, his voice low and dangerous as he tilted his head and moved his lips to Caleb’s ear.  “You have to call to her with every fiber of your being.  You have to <em>want her back</em>, more than anything or anyone else across the entire multiverse, with every ounce of belief you have within you.  In that moment—you can’t want anything else.  Or she won’t hear you,” he said softly, tragically, sadistically.  “She won’t hear you at all.”<br/><br/>Sweat beaded on his forehead as he struggled against the shallow heaving of his chest, scrambling to regain something like calm.  “<em>Ja</em>,” he managed, as the Traveler slowly withdrew, and he closed his eyes against having to look at him again.  “I can do that.”<br/><br/>“<em>Can </em>you?” the Traveler said, amused again with a terrible blackness.  “You haven’t very well so far.”<br/><br/>Caleb turned his head this way and that, unseeing, groping for an explanation.  “I have—things—” inadequate “—that I want to—to do,” he said, “but I can—”<br/><br/>“Give them up?  For a moment,” the Traveler said.  “A moment, you’ll tell yourself, it’s only a moment, and then she’ll return and you can craft another stone and carry on with your work as you’ve always intended, as if you could sacrifice nothing and still have her back.”<br/><br/>“You,” Caleb said, sheer fury blinding his eyes even as he opened them, “have no idea what I’ve sacrificed—”<br/><br/>“For your<em>self</em>,” the Traveler countered, swift and furious in turn.  “Always with the escape plan.  Always with the way out.  Always with the excuses, the silence.  None of that will save you here,” he said.<br/><br/>“I’m beyond saving,” he countered, the words strangely hollow as he said them.  “This isn’t about me.”<br/><br/>“No,” the Traveler said, a thin veneer of snobbery icing over the rage sparking in his eyes, “it’s not.”<br/><br/>Panic built in Caleb’s chest and he made a bulwark against it of his anger, tried to shore it up with cool logic—for a moment, only a moment; long enough to cast the spell; it would be enough.  He could allow himself to want her, for a moment, if it meant bringing her back.  And then she’d be back and someone else—and he—<br/><br/>“What do you think this is?” the Traveler asked, his voice a ribbon of silk cutting across Caleb’s thoughts.  “Your obsession with time, your fixation on the past, on undoing what has been done—oh yes; I know some of what you seek.  What do you think this is?  This, what you claim you want to do here, now?  Just because you’ve seen it done before doesn’t make it any less of a miracle,” he said.  “Just because you’ve seen it done before doesn’t mean it will happen again.  You are calling a soul back through the gateway from the realm of death,” he said.  “She’s not here, hovering around her body, waiting for someone to give her a little push back into it.  She is <em>gone</em>,” he said, “and you dare to think you could bring her back.”<br/><br/>He had no real response to that, though his heart continued to pound and his chest was tight and his hands kept clenching around nothing.  “Yes,” he said finally, quiet and not quite helpless.<br/><br/>“And all your parlor tricks,” he said, and Caleb felt as though he was circling around him, though neither of them moved, “all your fireworks, all the impressive things you can do with matter and space and form, mean <em>nothing</em> here.  Nothing,” he said again, his gaze now boring into Caleb’s aching head.  “All that matters here is what you <em>want</em>, and what you <em>believe</em>.”<br/><br/>He held up the transmuter’s stone then, between thumb and forefinger again, almost dangling it between Caleb’s eyes; and Caleb tried to focus on it, and as he went cross-eyed he focused instead on the Traveler’s face and saw, for an instant, an endless frustration in his eyes.  And he said, without quite knowing what he meant to say, putting the pieces together as the words tumbled out, “You—want her back.  You,” he said, with a strange relief, “you could call her.”<br/><br/>The Traveler’s eyes met his like a hawk finding a mouse in a field, honed and focused, and some of the edge of his anger drained away as Caleb narrowed his eyes, trying to understand.  “No,” he bit out, “I couldn’t.”<br/><br/>“But—”<br/><br/>“It’s not one of <em>my</em> powers,” he said.<br/><br/>“But this,” he said, hope pushing away some of the panic in his chest as he gestured towards the stone, “magic, all this power, is—<em>yours</em>.”<br/><br/>“Certainly,” he said.  “It’s my power to give away as I wish, to someone who might be able to bend it to their purpose.  All that makes it divinity is that it’s <em>belief</em>, not a pact or a promise.  But only someone who <em>believes</em> could be so bold as to bring someone back from the dead.<br/><br/>“So yes,” he said, irritated, his hand closing around the transmuter’s stone and palming it away as he crossed his arms, “I do want her back.  But I <em>can’t do it</em>.  And neither can you, unless you’re willing to.”<br/><br/>“I called on you,” Caleb countered, feeling the walls close around him again as he desperately scrambled for a foothold.  “I am—willing—”<br/><br/>“And able?” the Traveler asked ironically.  “Can you want her back, freely and without reservation?  Can you call to her with every ounce of your being, with no reservations in your voice?  Can you fling your entire self into the jaws of death and claim her from them, or will you leave a piece of yourself behind, wanting and wishing and hoping for some other miracle, as if this isn’t enough?  Can you be <em>satisfied</em> with the banality of <em>raising the dead</em>, or will you still want <em>more</em>?”<br/><br/>“What does it matter?” Caleb shouted, lighting a fire in the Traveler’s eyes, <em>stupid</em>, selfish and stupid and too proud and too worthless to be of use to anyone as he lost his focus on the work, the <em>work</em> that <em>had to be done</em>, unless he couldn’t do it.  “So I want her back, so I go on to other things after that.  What does it matter if I go onto them?  What does it—”<br/><br/>“But what if you can’t?” the Traveler said, burning intensity bearing down on him like the heat of—of—and he couldn’t think it wouldn’t think it but there was nowhere to escape the blaze.  “I’ll be honest, I’ve never tried something like this before, mixing the arcane and the divine.  What if we offend the Raven Queen, and she decides to strip us of all that we have?  Would you risk losing it?”<br/><br/>“Would you?” Caleb countered.<br/><br/>“What choice do I have?” the Traveler said.  “You called me here.  You called upon my power.  It’s not my fault if you didn’t consider the consequences.”<br/><br/>“You didn’t have to come,” Caleb said.<br/><br/>“But I did come,” the Traveler said smugly, as if that settled the matter.<br/><br/>Which it didn’t, and the logical voice in Caleb’s head said that he wouldn’t have come, wouldn’t have taken such a risk, not when Caduceus could simply cast the spell tomorrow.<br/><br/>But in that case, why did <em>he</em> not wait?<br/><br/><em>Stupid</em>.<br/><br/>“Fine,” he said, his cheeks burning, the Traveler’s smug expression unwavering.  “Anything else?”<br/><br/>“Not really,” he said, looking skyward for a moment.  “Just, oh, wake up whenever you’re ready.  And say her name,” he added, glancing back to him.  “You don’t have to do it, but it’s a nice touch.”  Caleb glared at him, but he merely smiled.  “Good luck,” he said.  “Call me if you need me!”<br/><br/>“Don’t worry,” Caleb bit out.  “I will.”<br/><br/>The Traveler smiled again.  “Good,” he said, and then he reached out and Caleb flinched, ducking his head; when he looked up again, he was alone in the clearing, the transmuter’s stone at his feet.<br/><br/>Not entirely alone; the lights twinkled around him, and Frumpkin curled around his shoulders like a scarf.  He let out a breath, and with it went his strength to stand, and so he dropped to his knees and then sat cross-legged on the ground to think.<br/><br/>He didn’t want to think.  He picked up the stone and turned it over, everything the Traveler had said echoing throughout his mind, not <em>wrong</em> but not quite right either, because she and Caduceus had both brought people back from the dead without this level of—of <em>dramatics</em>, he scoffed, and perhaps that was all it was, an archfey indulging his delight in the spectacle of other people’s suffering.  But that wasn’t right either, if not entirely wrong; the Traveler genuinely wanted her back.  That—that he believed, or at least had believed when he called, and still believed now; and he believed that the archfey thus told the truth, inasmuch as it involved bringing her back.<br/><br/>And their other resurrections had been less dramatic but they’d also been swifter and cast by people who knew what they were doing and had the power to do it, not cobbled together by a fake god and a wizard who wanted things beyond his grasp.  So perhaps there were caveats, after all.  Or at least actions that would bolster their success, and actions that would limit it.<br/><br/>He thought of Caduceus, of his quiet yet immense faith, of how driven he’d been without any of them knowing it and yet how he’d trusted, too, that what he wanted would come to him in its proper time.  How he approached the present moment in all its simplicity, and then the next, and then the next, taking them each as they came with the knowledge that another would soon follow.  He thought of Caduceus, able to rest in the moment without looking forwards or backwards, able to put everything else aside and want something for someone else more than he wanted anything for himself, and how the strength of his wanting on their behalf gave the rest of them strength to carry on in their tasks.<br/><br/>Strength, he thought, and trust, and simplicity; he had none of those to spare.  He thought—<br/><br/>and he didn’t want to, but—<br/><br/>he thought of Jester.<br/><br/>Jester, blue and dancing and believing with all her heart, arms thrown open wide to embrace the world with all its failings, no matter how they hurt her; Jester sacrificing again and again for everyone else, for her mother, for the Traveler, for Fjord, for Nott and for Beau and for Caduceus and for Yasha (<em>believing</em>, without any cause or hope, just the sheer strength of—of love) and for—and for him, and he thought of Jester, of Jester holding his hand, tucking him into bed when he’d done nothing but stumble drunkenly over her toes and called her by another woman’s name.  Jester, reaching out to him again and again and again even though he did nothing but say <em>no, no, I’ll tell you later</em>, lying to her through his teeth, and now she was dead, and <em>later </em>was <em>too late</em>.<br/><br/>Tears welled up in his eyes, but he didn’t care because he thought too of his mother and father, his <em>mother</em> and his <em>father</em>, who had sacrificed everything, <em>everything</em> for him.  Given their lives for their country, he’d told Ludinus, his parents who had burned alive for the sake of his pride and his stupidity and how could he—how could he abandon them?  How could he abandon what he <em>had to do</em>, for the sake of a girl they’d—<br/><br/>They’d love her, of course, if he were a different man, and if they were around to love her then he would be that different man.  He could have brought her home, could have watched his mother’s trepidation at her appearance—<em>oh Bren, she’s blue</em>—melt away in the face of her charm.  And his father, watching from the corner with crinkled eyes, would give him a nod when the women weren’t looking, <em>she’ll do</em>, and he could talk to his father about her, and ask about how his father had known his mother was the one, because he could have talked to his father man-to-man instead of regarding him as so much peasantry to be ground underfoot if the Empire required it. <br/><br/>He could <em>know </em>his <em>parents</em>, and they could know her, and they’d love her, because everyone loved her because she loved everyone so much.  And in turn her hatred was just as fierce; she’d hated Trent <em>for him</em> long before she ever met the man to decide for herself, and she’d kill him if he asked and maybe even if he didn’t.  And what had he done, what had he <em>done</em>, unless this was the only appropriate punishment for his crimes, that she would befriend him so passionately when he couldn’t—<em>wouldn’t</em>—<br/><br/>And that was selfish of him, perhaps, but he knew he was selfish, had never bothered to deny it.  He was selfish; he’d admit to it easily, carelessly, because of course he was selfish.  Except somehow he’d fooled them into thinking he wasn’t; but he <em>was</em>, and maybe he’d simply been pretending too hard that he wasn’t, that he was capable of doing things to make the world better for other people, as if he <em>believed</em> making the world better was important, that it was the most important thing he wanted to do.  That destroying the Assembly would be enough, that he could rest content once they were gone, as if that was all he wanted.  As if he didn’t have work to do, as if he didn’t have to <em>undo the unthinkable</em>.<br/><br/>And <em>what if what if what if</em>, what if he undid it and they died anyway; what if he undid it and the Assembly grew stronger; what if he died at the moment he failed to light the blaze; what if they killed him; what if he never met Veth, never met the Nein, never came to this moment of crisis because what if they all died because he wasn’t there to save them; what if they all died because they weren’t there to save each other.  What if it didn’t matter that his mother and father would love her because what if they’d never even meet her, what <em>if</em>—<br/><br/>But how could he want her—<em>more</em>?  How could he want all of them <em>more</em>?  How could he want what he didn’t deserve, how could he turn his back on what he hadn’t deserved—<br/><br/><em>Can you fling your entire self into the jaws of death and claim her from them</em>; how could he even <em>begin</em>?  He wasn’t a hero.  He wasn’t one of the leading men in her books, dashing and brave past the point of stupidity, and even if he brought her back his arms wouldn’t be the ones in which she swooned with gratitude.  He wasn’t strong enough, for starters.  He wasn’t—<br/><br/>Caduceus could have cast the spell.  <em>Are you sure?</em> he’d asked, and he’d been so sure, <em>so</em> sure, until he wasn’t.  He wasn’t.  He—couldn’t.<br/><br/>Then why had he volunteered in the first place?  <em>Stupidity and pride</em>.<br/><br/>No, he thought quietly, sinking below the maelstrom of his thoughts to someplace deep and still within him, not just that.<br/><br/>Simply, in the moment—<br/><br/>he’d called because he believed, and—<br/><br/>because—<br/><br/>he simply couldn’t imagine life without her.<br/><br/>And then he was drowning, the yawning black sorrow swallowing him whole, because she was dead.  Dead and gone, <em>gone</em>; except not, except she had the chance to live again, if he didn’t screw it up.  A big if, and more than his parents had ever had.  She had the whole Nein to intercede for her; and who would intercede for his parents?<br/><br/>She would, if she were alive.<br/><br/>He sucked in another breath, and became aware of his surroundings again, the salt on his cheeks, his eyes, wide and burning, mouth dry, hands gripping his hair, Frumpkin purring incessantly in his ear, as electricity coursed through him, because of course, <em>of course</em>, why hadn’t he thought of that before now.  He could bring her back, yes, and then she could—<br/><br/>But <em>no</em>, the iron door slamming shut with a clang over the thought, that was his selfishness again, wasn’t it?  He had to want her back simply for herself.  And he did.  He <em>did</em>.  He loved her.  His entire body ached with the thought, caved in upon itself even as he thought he might explode with the knowledge, the admittance, <em>he loved her and he wanted her back</em>, but he couldn’t bring her back and he shouldn’t love her and how <em>dare</em> he burden her, first with his ridiculous impossible useless feelings and now with the possibility that after all this he’d just let her down again, burden her with the permanence of death when they had a perfectly qualified cleric <em>right there</em>—<br/><br/>but he couldn’t wait that long, because he loved her, stupid and proud and useless as he was.  For whatever feeble definition of love he could manage, as if he knew what love really meant.<br/><br/>But he loved his parents too, and that had been—true, and in that truth he couldn’t deny that he loved her as truly as he’d loved them, or Astrid, or Wulf, as truly as he loved Veth, and Beau, and Fjord and Yasha and Caduceus.  And to abandon his parents—to abandon the ones who taught him the truth of love, even to their deaths—felt like the abandonment of everything he’d ever known; but what if choosing them meant abandoning the Nein, the family he’d found, who’d taught him to care and to trust anew—<br/><br/>And who would have thought that here at the end of all things, or at least what felt like them, the greatest problem facing Caleb Widogast—and Bren Aldric Ermendrud for that matter—would be the fact that he simply loved too many people?<br/><br/>He covered his face with his hands.<br/><br/><em>Simple enough</em>, he heard Caduceus say.  <em>You take care of the people in front of you, and then you deal with what’s ahead</em>.<br/><br/>And what about what was left behind?<br/><br/><em>Well</em>, Caduceus-in-his-head said, <em>then I guess you have to decide what it is that you want</em>.<br/><br/><em>We’ll support you</em>, Veth added, unexpectedly; madness, but her voice was enough of a relief that he closed his eyes and clung to it.  <em>Whatever you choose.  I’m here for you.</em><br/><br/>And when had he ever demonstrated good judgment?  What had he ever done to earn their trust that he might <em>choose</em>—<br/><br/><em>You were willing to turn back in the Happy Fun Ball</em>, Beau suggested.<br/><br/>—wisely—<br/><br/><em>I don’t know</em>, Yasha said, and again he saw her eyes, pathos and understanding, a fellow traveler down the dark road who’d somehow found it within herself to leap towards the light, <em>you’ve always wanted to do good with this group</em>.<br/><br/><em>You’re a good man</em>, Fjord said lightly, insisting without any pressure at all, <em>and a good friend</em>.<br/><br/>He loved them all—so dearly—<em>too</em> dearly—<br/><br/><em>Father and mother</em>, and he saw their faces clearly, saw the infinite possibilities of the Beacon stretching around him, whispering that he could attain what he wanted,<em> I hope I do not let you down.</em><br/><br/>But did he still—want—and even if he did, was he still willing to pay—his life, sure, that had been an easy cost, worthless for any other purpose anyway (and what if he brought them back and died doing so? and how would his mother’s heart break?)—but the lives of—all the others—<br/><br/>what was <em>important</em>?  What <em>mattered</em>?  What mattered more?<br/><br/>He didn’t have to choose.  He could abandon the whole thing, the spell, the ritual, the group, cut their losses and walk out (they wouldn’t let him; they wouldn’t let Beau and they wouldn’t let him, either), and just accept this as another one of his catastrophically poor decisions.  Even if they kept him around, they’d still look at him as a failure.  Doomed to be a disappointment, that’s all he was, no matter what he did.  To himself, to his parents, to Astrid, to Ikkithon, to Jester—<br/><br/><em>Jester</em>—<br/><br/>her hand in his, her arm against his, looking up at him, <em>we’re here for you, okay?</em>; her arms around his middle, head pressed against his pounding heart, <em>thank you</em>; leaning towards him, a co-conspirator, <em>you’re a good friend</em>. <br/><br/>He wanted—to believe her.  To believe all of them.  He wanted—to reach for her as she reached for him, to see her aching with loneliness and sadness and fear and to wipe away her tears, to be <em>worthy</em> of wiping away her tears, to be able to drag her back from the realms of death and hold her in his arms and let her rest there, to love her freely, to tell her—everything.<br/><br/>Impossible.<br/><br/>He saw her looking at him, kindness in her eyes yet mixed with pain, suffering on his behalf. <em>I think you’re a good person</em>.<br/><br/><em>I’m not</em>, he told her, desperately, wanting to reach for her and absolutely incapable of it.  <em>I’m so sorry.  I’m really, really not</em>.<br/><br/><em>Well</em>, and he felt her hands on his cheeks, blessing and healing and restoration, <em>I think you are</em>.<br/><br/>He swallowed, his throat raw and dry, and opened his eyes.  Frumpkin purred in his ear.  He sat in a Feywild dreamscape.  Jester was dead.  He was alone, aside from his cat, and teetering on the edge of insanity, which was all that came from trying to do the impossible, he supposed.<br/><br/><em>You’re a good person.  A good friend.  A good man</em>.  No.  Good people didn’t incinerate their parents.  Good friends didn’t attempt resurrection rituals beyond their ability.  Good men didn’t—<br/><br/><em>I don’t think our actions define who we are all the time</em>.  He was ruined.  He—<br/><br/>but—<br/><br/>and he saw her, violet eyes steady, <em>believing</em> in him—<br/><br/>what if.<br/><br/>He shook his head, but the thoughts tumbled on, unbidden.  What if—and no <em>good</em> came from wondering what if—but what if he—could…be.<br/><br/>He wasn’t, he assured himself, but if he could be.  If he could be—if he already <em>was</em> all those things they believed him to be—impossible, <em>impossible</em>, but he grabbed the thought and clung to it like a lifeline, his breath shallow and quick, catching snatches of air before the sea overwhelmed him again—if he <em>was</em> a good person, and a good man, and a good friend—if he <em>was</em> all those things, then what if—what if he could love her and want what was best for her and offer himself to her as a good person, someone she could—someone who might—and then—what if—<br/><br/>His father, a soldier, prizing camaraderie and honor; his mother, a farmer, rooted in honest labor and hospitality; if he was a good person and a good man and a good friend, the kind of person who could raise someone from the dead by wanting nothing more and nothing less than the best for them, then perhaps his parents might be—perhaps that—<br/><br/>perhaps that, more than impossible plane-shattering magics that would destroy everything they held dear—<br/><br/>perhaps that would make them proud, simply being the man he’d become.<br/><br/>Impossible, and yet.<br/><br/><em>What if</em>.<br/><br/>What if he simply was—good?<br/><br/><em>No</em>, he thought, <em>no, no, no, no</em>, but the thought took hold, rooted itself like his mother’s green beans, twining around every spare ounce of resistance he had, brilliant and blooming, and he’d killed them, he’d <em>killed them</em> and what if he was still good, what if they—forgave him—<br/><br/>what if he forgave—<em>himself</em>—<br/><br/>and what if he brought Jester back, and what if the Nein was together again, family again, and what if he loved them all, and what if he loved his parents and made them proud, and what if it wasn’t his fault—he took a deep shuddering breath, his face hot, tears soaking his skin as he pressed his palms into his eyes and wept, no longer sure if he was crying from sorrow or joy.  Probably both.<br/><br/>Because what if he could simply live?  Live, and love, and do good going forward?<br/><br/>He staggered to his feet, sobs racking his body, Frumpkin digging claws into his shoulder to hang on, and he closed his hands around his transmuter’s stone and focused.  He imagined Veth’s hand tugging at his coat, Fjord’s and Beau’s on his shoulders, Caduceus’s on his head, Yasha’s arms around them all, and then he looked up and saw his mother, and his father, and they reached and covered his hands with theirs.<br/><br/>He stared at them for a long time, his mother’s hair pulled back in its neat bun, his father’s craggy features so like what he saw in the mirror, when he bothered to look.  Tears fell upon their hands, and he whispered, “I’m sorry.”<br/><br/>His father smiled, his eyes sad; his mother whispered, “Oh, Bren,” and he closed his eyes as she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead; and then, he opened his eyes.<br/><br/>His feet stood upon a solid wood floor and his eyes fell upon Jester’s body in the bed and immediately the magic swarmed him, a torrent rushing over his head and in and around the stone in his hands, and he took a deep breath, let it fill his lungs to bursting, though he no longer felt the urge to scream.  Instead, he looked at her; and he loved her, and wanted nothing more than to see her looking back at him; and he believed.<br/><br/>He leaned forward, placing the stone atop the joined hands of her tattoo, right above her heart, covering it with his hands; and then he closed his eyes and whispered in her ear, soft and sure, “Jester, come home.”<br/><br/>The magic snapped like a tense string, flood waters parting and then rushing all at once into the stone beneath his hands, inundating him, battering him, but he bowed his head and braced his feet and held his hands steady and <em>wanted</em>, and every ounce of magic that he and the Traveler had, that he and his friends had woven together, poured itself into his stone.  Beneath his palm he felt it grow warm and hot and then vanish, and as it dissipated his hand touched her chest and her tattoo lit up <em>green</em>, green fire coursing through Orly’s painstakingly beautiful designs and then spreading through her veins, and he glanced and saw the same green glowing beneath her closed eyelids, twining through the strands of her hair; and then it faded, and he closed his eyes again, and waited.<br/><br/><em>Eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf.</em><br/><br/>Beneath his hands, her chest rose, and then fell.<br/><br/>He splayed his fingers across her chest unknowingly, his breath leaving him in a rush as hers returned, and he lifted himself up and looked down and her eyes blinked open, wincing, and then focusing on him.<br/><br/>“Caleb?” she said, and the breath left him again, and again, quick, hard huffs as he stared down at her wondering expression.  “Caleb,” she said again, the sound of his name in her voice roaring like the rushing of blood in his ears, and then she frowned and started to sit up.  “I—did I—”<br/><br/>“<em>Ja</em>,” he said, bracing her shoulders as she propped herself up on her elbows and peered at him, “but, that’s all right.  You’re—” <em>impossible</em>, and he said it anyway “—here, now.”<br/><br/>“Oh man,” she said, chagrined, and a smile broke out across his face, so wide his cheeks hurt almost as much as his heart, his breath still hard, his fingers gripping the warm—<em>warm</em>—skin of her shoulders, “that hurt.”<br/><br/>He barked a laugh, his arms shaking, and her eyes met his again.  “Hey,” she said, and a small smile curled the corners of her mouth, wondrous and wondering, “wait, Caleb—did you…did <em>you</em>—?”<br/><br/>He nodded, still breathlessly laughing, his heart falling to pieces in his chest.  “I had,” he said, “help, so much help but <em>ja</em>, <em>ja</em> I—”<br/><br/>“That’s really impressive,” she said, and she sounded impressed but he barely heard it as tears blurred his vision and he blinked them away.  Impossible.  <em>Impossible</em>, and yet—and the tears filled his eyes again—he’d—oh, and he felt like a fraud—but he’d done what only a good man could do and that meant—<br/><br/>and that meant—<br/><br/>“Caleb,” she said, softly now, shifting under his hands, now holding onto her as much to support himself as her, and he bowed his head, his shoulders shaking as he gulped down air and shuddered a laugh, “it’s all right.  Caleb,” she said, and he lifted his chin enough to see her through the curtain of hair in his eyes, peering at him with concern and a question and a still small quiet happiness, grateful and glad.<br/><br/>His breath left him in a trembling gasp, and he collapsed to his knees and pressed his face into her lap and sobbed.<br/><br/>“Hey,” she said, distantly, and he felt her arms around his shoulders as his tears soaked her skirt, crying with joy and relief and inexpressible sorrow, for his parents, lost and gone and <em>so proud</em>, for the sad loneliness of a little blue tiefling girl, for a good man given the grace of a miracle when he thought that his future held nothing but death and regret.  And what—was he supposed to do <em>now</em>—<br/><br/>And then he heard Veth’s voice, laughing and shocked, “Caleb!  You did it!  You did it!” and suddenly he felt her throw her arms around his legs, and a moment later he felt Beau tripping over his feet and heard the heavy <em>thump</em> of Yasha’s boots and the <em>thunk</em> of Caduceus’s staff hitting the floor as he leaned over him to cast a healing spell, and then Fjord was pounding on his back and he smelled the Ruby’s perfume as Marion shoved her way onto the bed next to Jester crying <em>my sapphire, oh my Jester, oh my Jester</em>, and they were all there, his <em>family</em>, all of them together, hugging Jester, hugging him, heedless of his sobs, their joyful and relieved voices ringing in his ears.<br/><br/>“I’m real sorry you guys,” Jester said somewhere over his head, laughing, her arms abandoning him and of course she had to hug her mother but he <em>missed</em> her and he loved her—<br/><br/><em>oh</em>, he loved her and he was—and suddenly so many what ifs were <em>real</em> and the thought jolted him into lifting his head and staring at her, electrified and terrified, as she pressed her cheek against her mother’s and reached one hand to Fjord and another to Yasha.  “I heard you,” she said to them, her eyes bright and glittering with tears she refused to shed, her smile implacable, and he loved her.  “I heard your song, Mama, and Fjord—thank you,” she said, and the half-orc ducked his head, “and <em>Yasha</em>,” she continued, shifting to turn towards her, “that flower is <em>beautiful</em>, and as soon as we can teleport we’re going to have to pick, like, a hundred of them and see if they’ll grow here.”<br/><br/>“It’s a date,” Yasha said, her smile nearly as wide, nearly as heartbroken as Caleb felt—but mending, too, <em>mending</em>, and as Jester turned to him he felt the jagged shards of his own heart begin to fit together again.<br/><br/>“And Caleb,” Jester said, and then she <em>saw</em> him, and in an instant she leaned forward and cupped his face in her hands and drew him upright, and the world became little more than the whisper of breath in his lungs and the light in her eyes and the brush of her thumbs, wiping away his tears, “oh, <em>Caleb</em>.”<br/><br/>“<em>Ja</em>,” he said, a crooked broken smile coming to his lips even as he stared at her, helplessly in love, “hello.”<br/><br/>“I heard you too,” she said, her hands pressing into his skin as she searched his face and he let her see—<em>everything</em>—nothing to hide, anymore, and oh he had to tell her—so much, and he watched her read his face.  He watched her breath catch, felt her fingers press into his jaw, and he swallowed, hard, but didn’t look away, even as she met his gaze again, looking as tremulously hopeful as he felt.  “Thank you, Caleb,” she said.<br/><br/>“Well, you know,” he said, his voice hoarse, his lips dry, “I always told you I’d get you home to your mother.”<br/><br/>She—<em>melted</em>, and then an arm was around his neck and he found himself crushed against the Ruby of the Sea as Marion hugged both of them, her tears falling into his hair.  “Thank you,” she said, as he struggled to breathe, “<em>thank you</em>.<br/><br/>“And thank you, as well,” she added, loosening her grip, and Caleb awkwardly climbed onto the edge of the bed to make room for the others and looked up to see the Traveler, leaning against the bedpost with a self-satisfied smile.<br/><br/>“Traveler!” Jester yelped, accidentally kicking Caleb as she whirled around to face him.<br/><br/>“Jester, darling, so good to have you back,” he said, reaching out and tucking her hair behind her ear before running his fingers down her jaw, his voice as suave as always, the intensity in his eyes genuine.  “I missed you.”<br/><br/>“I missed you too,” she said, and then she darted a glance at Caleb and then back to the Traveler.  “Did you help?  Wait a minute, Caleb,” she said, looking back and forth between them, incredulous and delighted, “did you pray to the Traveler to bring me back?”<br/><br/>“Something like that,” the Traveler said, arranging his cloak as he crossed his arms, cavalier.  “After all, we wouldn’t want to let your mother down.  Or yours,” he added, and his gaze cut to Caleb, who lifted his chin and held it, staring him down in turn.  Respect mingled with calculating gratitude in his fey-green eyes, sparking with a magic Caleb could still feel running across his fingers; and then he tilted his head to the side and said, quietly, an offering, “They’re proud.”<br/><br/>And <em>how</em>—too many questions flooded his mind; but he believed, and so he swallowed them back and nodded, and at once the Traveler gave a toss of his head, careless and genial again.  “As am I, of course.  I look forward to working with you again in the future.”  Caleb snorted and the Traveler winked at him and turned to Jester.  “Keep him around,” he told her, with one last glance at Caleb.  “He smells nice.”<br/><br/>Caleb sighed, long and suffering, but Jester giggled and he couldn’t help but crack into a grin, widening as he caught her eye and she beamed at him.  The Traveler rolled his eyes and said, “Glad you’re back.  Make the most of it.”<br/><br/>“I will,” Jester said, looking up at him.  “Thank you.”<br/><br/>He smiled.  “My pleasure,” he said, and then he dropped a kiss on her forehead and drew his cloak across them all and vanished.<br/><br/>“Well,” Caduceus said into the ensuing silence, as Marion wrapped her arms around Jester and Caleb blinked and raised his eyes to the ceiling and realized his head ached and he was incredibly thirsty.  “I think that went well.”<br/><br/>“Better than that,” Fjord said immediately.  “Caleb, that was <em>incredible</em>.”<br/><br/>“Yeah, well,” Caleb said, finding himself strangely speechless and surprisingly lighthearted about it, “you know.  Somebody had to do it.”<br/><br/>“It was pretty amazing,” Beau said begrudgingly.<br/><br/>“And brave,” Yasha said.<br/><br/>He felt his cheeks going warm.  “Yeah,” he said again, “well.”<br/><br/>“How did you do it?” Jester asked.<br/><br/>He finally looked back to her, resting her head on her mother’s shoulder and regarding him with a curiosity that turned pink and pleased when he looked at her, and his cheeks went hot.  “I,” he said, flushed and speechless again, smiling at her as if he could—<em>because</em> he could—and the look in her eyes went as wobbly as he felt, something between flying across a cloud and bobbing atop the waves just off the shore.  “I’ll tell you later.”<br/><br/>“Yeah?” she said, hesitant, and he felt a guilty twinge.<br/><br/>“Yeah,” he said, as seriously and sincerely as he could muster when the sight of her made him want to laugh and cry and gather her in his arms. <br/><br/>She searched his face again, and then she bit her lip and nodded.  “Okay,” she said, the word like a balloon released from its tether, bubbles and sea foam and a clear blue sky in her smile.<br/><br/>He smiled back, breathless and almost laughing, and he felt Marion’s eyes on them, saw her place a hand to Jester’s head and hold her there as she hummed.  Oh, and he hadn’t—thought that far ahead—and he felt himself turning purple—<br/><br/>“Great,” Veth said, barreling across his thoughts like a tenpin ball, “Jester, <em>so</em> glad you’re back, do you think we can get something to eat?” <br/><br/>“Oh man,” Jester said, suddenly sitting up, her mother’s hand falling away as she pressed a hand to her stomach, “I’m so hungry you guys.”<br/><br/>“Fabulous,” Veth said, but when Caleb looked to her the tattoo on her face sparkled with tear tracks, and when she met his gaze he saw gratitude and a strange heartbreak of her own, but before he could draw breath she gave a little shake of her head, and then nodded him back to Jester.<br/><br/>“I can have something brought to my rooms, if you’d rather we all—I confess <em>I’d </em>rather we all—” Marion said, looking around them.<br/><br/>“That’d be most appreciated,” Fjord said.<br/><br/>“Oh shit,” Veth said, “I left Yeza and Luc in your room, they must be so worried, we gotta tell them—”<br/><br/>“They can stay,” Caleb said, and Veth gave him a look that said she knew this, but he wanted to say it anyway.  “They’re family too.”<br/><br/>She held the look a moment more, and then it narrowed, considering him.  “I’m proud of you,” she said abruptly, tilting her head this way and that as she looked at him.  “You look different.”<br/><br/>He snorted, and Beau said, “Yeah, it’s weird.  You look, like, almost happy.”  She leaned in.  “He didn’t like, make you lose your memory or anything weird, right?”<br/><br/>He smiled tightly, meeting her hard gaze, letting her ferret whatever secrets she wanted out of him.  “No,” he said, simply.  “Just…happy.”<br/><br/>“What are your parents’ names?” Jester said from beside him, and when he turned his head they were shoulder-to-shoulder, her eyes wide and concerned, and he loved her.<br/><br/>“Una and Leofric,” he said, regarding her fondly, “and they would have liked you.”<br/><br/>She blinked at him, and said, “Oh,” in a much different voice, her cheeks darkening.  “I bet I would have liked them too.”<br/><br/>“You would have,” he told her, and she stared at him, and he couldn’t help the smile at the corners of his lips.  “I’ll have to tell you about them.”<br/><br/>“I’d like that,” she said, still breathless, still hopeful, still tremulous, and he felt all those things in his heart and…enjoyed them, the nervous anticipation, the deep breath before taking the plunge.<br/><br/>“Dinner?” Marion said, and he realized everyone was staring at them again and this time felt the flush all the way up his ears.<br/><br/>“Yes please,” Jester said, bouncing off the bed, and her mother sighed.<br/><br/>“<em>Now</em> you’re talking,” Beau said, but then her face crumpled and she grabbed Jester in a fierce hug, and a moment later Caleb found himself swept along with the rest of them, a tangled mass of arms and bonked heads and smushed toes and Jester laughing in the middle of it, their heart and their glue, right where she was meant to be.<br/><br/>“I can’t <em>breathe</em>,” Veth said from somewhere around his knee, and the hug broke apart, but Caleb grabbed onto Fjord’s shoulder and Yasha’s bicep and they all paused, a loose circle, looking to him as he looked at all of them, feeling as though his skinny chest might burst.<br/><br/>“Thank you all,” he said quietly.<br/><br/>Yasha smiled; Beau lifted her chin, eyes narrowed in a slight smile.  Caduceus gave him a nod, proud and a little amused, and Fjord gripped his arm and said, “Thank <em>you</em>.”<br/><br/>“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Caleb said.  And then he said, the words awkward with disuse but true, and he <em>wanted</em> to say them, “I don’t know—what I’d do, without you.”<br/><br/>“You’re welcome,” Veth sang, breezy and confident, her eyes shining with pride.  “Now let’s eat.”<br/><br/>“Come on, Caleb,” Jester said, standing before him, holding out her hand, and for a moment he saw her as she’d been the moment he first fell in love with her, reaching across an entire table in a little tavern in Trostenwald to say <em>hi, I’m Jester</em>, and change his world for the better.<br/><br/>This time, he took it, and let her draw him to her side.  “Lead the way,” he said, and the smile she gave him filled his heart.  “I’m with you.”<br/><br/>Their friends crowded around them, shoving them together, shoulder-to-shoulder, as they jostled towards the door, babbling about food and pillows and candles and magic.  He let their words wash over him, their voices warm and familiar and comforting, just as Jester’s hand felt in his, her grip tight, and as they lost themselves in the shuffle he felt her slide her fingers between his and give him a squeeze.<br/><br/>He wasn’t sure where he was going; didn’t quite know who he was going to be; but so long as he had his family with him, he knew, quite simply, he would be—good.</p>
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